The writer Jeremy Jones was talking to his grandmother. She showed him an old newspaper clipping about the diaries being found and decoded and casually mentioned the diarist was his great great great (I forget how many greats?) grandfather. Intrigued, Jones tracked down a copy of the obscure academic book in which the diaries were decoded.
“Cipher” takes us down his ancestral rabbit hole as he examines the daily jottings of a direct ancestor who was writing them only for himself, with no intention of ever having them read by anybody else. These are astonishing time capsule artifacts.
Prestwood grew up in South Carolina, then it seems he fled to North Carolina with his mother. We are not sure what his reasons were, he became estranged from his father, perhaps the sheriff was after him. He went from owning valuable property to being a guy in the mountains making his living as a subsistence farmer, schoolteacher, land surveyor and gold miner.
Some of the notebooks were missing, we have gaps and he is frequently terse, with two or three word entries, rarely displaying any emotions. His hormones were in overdrive into his seventies-accounts of romantic conquests are pithy, somewhat graphic. He was a lusty man, constantly thinking about sex. When he finally settled down and married he was faithful to his wife for a number of years. Until he wasn’t. He would then have assignations with his mistress in various rustic locations, including the hog barn. Such a swine. At one point his son almost catches them in flagrante delicto.
He had slaves. The slavery aspect of this was especially challenging for Jones as he tried to understand his ancestor’s actions. He did help conceal runaway slaves at times. He also sold them and had a number of illegitimate children with an enslaved woman. Different times. Hard to comprehend.
Prestwood was involved in brutal military actions instigated by President Andrew Jackson as the Indigenous tribes were driven from the region in what became known as “The Trail of Tears.” Jones mulls over his ancestor’s life. He goes deep, hoping to learn what became of the Prestwood offspring who were instantly enslaved at birth. Did Prestwood care about them? Jones contacted possible descendants of that hidden family line. While searching for Prestwood, Jones found himself.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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